Presently major teeth movement is performed by affixing orthodontic appliances in the form of brackets and tubes to the teeth. An arch wire interconnects the brackets and tubes. Teeth are moved along the arch wire by a variety of forces generated by appropriate resilient members.
When the teeth are near their ideal positions by the operation of the orthodontic appliances described in the preceding paragraph, it is the usual practice to form plaster models of the upper and lower arches. These plaster models are formed by first taking a negative impression of the teeth in an appropriate impression material, and then filling the negative impression with liquid plaster. After the plaster has set, the final result is a positive representation of the patient's teeth and adjacent tissue. The plaster models are then taken to a laboratory, and all the teeth are removed from the model separately with a very fine cutting saw. The teeth are then replaced on the base of the model in the ideal position and fixed in that position with a hard wax. Rubber under high pressure is then formed to fit the model.
The result of the foregoing is a mouth piece positioner with the impressions of all of the upper and lower teeth of the patient in their ideal positions. This prior art mouth piece positioner is then placed in the patient's mouth as a tooth positioner. The patient is instructed to bite continually into the positioner for a specified time and then to relax. The positioner must be worn for a certain number of hours, and there must be a continual biting down and relaxation of the teeth to move the teeth the small distance remaining to their ideal positions.
This continual clenching and relaxing of the teeth is laborious and tiring. However, the patient cooperation is mandatory in order to obtain the desired result, and many patients find the clenching too tiring to carry out on a prolonged basis. However, if the patient cooperates and continues to clench and force the teeth toward their ideal positions, very good results can be obtained using the prior art positioner.
The orthodontic appliance of the present invention makes use of such tooth positioner mouth pieces. However, the appliance of the invention has the advantage in that it achieves the desired results with minimal patient cooperation. The rubber positioner is activated by vibrational forces to press the teeth that are in malocclusion into a corrected position without continued clenching by the patient. The vibration of the rubber makes the positioner an active tooth moving appliance that exerts the correcting pressures of the positioner. Because of the reduced need for patient cooperation, the appliance of the invention can be used to treat a malocclusion through a series of positioners from the initial malocclusion to the finished correction without other orthodontic appliances. This results in reduced orthodontic material costs, reduced chair time, and increased patient's acceptance because the positioner is removable and can be taken out of the mouth on occasions when a person is in a public place.